27. Aurelia

Chapter 27

Aurelia

S avage's face transforms, splitting into a broad grin. It is delight personified, and his voice is pure adoration when he cries, "There's my little chompy!"

The room, which had started up a low buzz of conversation after we'd sat down, goes quiet again.

Savage jumps off the bar and sprints towards me at full speed.

I would have run towards him too, if it were not for Lyle's warning caress and Scythe's calm voice. " Do not stand. Do not show affection. You are angry with him. Imperious."

My exhale is filled with the force of my desire for Savage and I don't stop the scent of arousal from spreading outward as my one rebellion to Scythe's annoying command. I want to leap into Savage's arms and let him take me away from this place. But we are here for a show. We are here for Sabrina. The Clawsons need to have their attentions fixed on me.

So I command my face into my best version of queenly disappointment, and as Savage skids to a stop in front of me, I raise my chin, hold out my hand and say into his mind, " Want to play a game, my pretty wolf? "

He breathes in my scent and drops dramatically to his knees. "Regina," he grits out, his restraint clear in the bulging vessels in his neck as he air-kisses my hand and says into my mind. "You know I will beat you at any game, queen of my heart."

I cock a brow, fully aware that every eye in the room is on us.

"What did you just call me?" I ask.

Savage's eyes roam down my body, as if he can consume me with his gaze. "Chompy," he sighs wistfully

"And why is that?"

His eyes glint, but he makes his voice pleading. "Because you crush a human skull so beautifully, regina." He takes my hand in both of his. "Let me have you here."

I lean closer to him until my lips almost touch his muzzle. "Such a good boy,"

"The goodest," he says breathlessly.

I sit back in my chair and growl softly. "Why did you make me wait?"

Savage opens his mouth, but I slowly shake my head and narrow my eyes. I gesture to the floor. "Sit." It's a command.

"Oh, naughty regina," Savage says into my mind, his eyes flaring with challenge. But he grins wolfishly and sits cross-legged in front of my chair, coiling one hand around my right calf. He rubs his ear against my leg and growls at the onlookers.

"I fucking knew it," Xander says into the group chat. "You've just been waiting to do this."

I cast a smirk his way, and in the process catch Lyle's amber gaze. His eyes blaze as he sips from his glass. Feline power strokes down my neck, right over my mating mark. He's turned on, I realise with amusement, and making sure I haven't forgotten him.

But how could I forget? Powerful men sit around me, their very presence raking down my skin, never letting me forget that they watch me. That they desire me.

My body is suddenly hot and fluttery. A tingling feeling sidles its way right from the tips of my fingers to tickle my core.

Savage's thumb makes slow circles behind my knee. Lyle's hot power grazes my neck, and cold, cold eyes see through my skin to my pounding heart.

"Guard your loins, gentlemen," Xander sneers into the group chat. "The Collector approaches."

"We knew she'd be first," Scythe replies.

"She's been waiting all night," Savage says.

When I see who the fuss is about, I understand immediately. A woman strolls towards us with a group of followers behind her. She's slender and tall, dressed in a reptile-patterned dress that reaches her calves. A black, broad-rimmed hat with a powder blue feather sits upon a glossy raven bob. Her lips are blood red, makeup impeccable on a tanned, beautiful face. Black-heeled boots click authoritatively until she stands before us. But none of this is what makes my stomach violently turn. Elbow-length black silk gloves cover her hands and arms, but only the left bears a golden bangle.

On it are clipped five golden chains, all leading to golden collars around the necks of the four animalia forced to walk behind her.

Like pets.

Three males and a female. The first one catches my eye immediately and explains the blue feather. I've never seen a shoe-bill stork in real life and this one stands proudly despite its collar. I stare, mesmerised by its long reed-like legs, its powerful, crocodile-killing bill and its piercing, observant eyes.

Two captives are in their human forms. A dark-haired Indonesian man, and a golden-haired, slender female who carries a platypus in her arms, the fourth collar, around his little brown furry neck. Unfamiliar scents drift into my nose. I've never seen a platypus shifter before either.

I try not to gape. I try not to vomit. The Collector . Of the rare and unique. Suddenly, her predatory eyes on Scythe take on a whole new meaning.

Having carefully ignored me, she waves her wineglass, filled with red, and speaks with a deep, seductive drawl. "A pleasure, as always, to see your face gracing The Jewel."

"Lady Crocodylus," Scythe rasps in a cold, flat voice that pleases me. "The pleasure is mine."

Her name brushes along my spine.

The Lady Crocodile sighs wistfully. "Are you finally done having fun at that silly little school?" she smirks. "It's been very boring without you."

"I'm sure it has. I'll return in time."

"In time," she repeats, finally turning to fix me with a dominant stare that makes my skin crawl. "Because what you want is there."

I meet her gaze for gaze. There will never be a collar around my neck. Metaphorical or not. Never again will I be forced to live under the will of another.

Scythe turns slightly towards me. "May I introduce you to my guest, Lady Aurelia Boneweaver."

The Collector never misses a beat. "Once Aurelia Naga. Tell me, Aurelia, does your father know you are here?"

I allow a smile to curve my lips, allowing my gaze to wander down her neck. None of her mates are here. This is an unmated female. "Oh, I'm sure he does." I brush an invisible speck of dust from my dress as Savage leans his temple affectionately against my knee. "He keeps abreast of everything, even if it gets him lassoed out of Animus Academy."

Lyle chuckles under his breath. I'm sure everyone had heard the way the deputy headmaster sent the Serpent King and his court flying out of the academy grounds when he'd come to collect me for my execution.

But The Collector cocks a brow, and when she smiles a viper's smile, I know she has a retort ready to go. "And…your mother?"

I'm not prepared for that. It's crass and a low blow. It makes my smile falter as a profound fury roars through my veins. Everyone around me is quiet, waiting for my reply.

"My mother is dead, Lady Crocodylus," I say frankly.

Her smile widens into something ugly and it disturbs me more than I'd like to admit. Something dark sweeps through me. Like a ghost.

Full body goosebumps erupt all over my skin.

"Well," Lady Crocodylus says abruptly, "Mace and I have more in common than I thought. It is a shame he is not here tonight." She smiles again and turns back to Scythe, dismissing me. "You must join us at the tables. I have…" She turns around and gestures to the animalia on chains behind her. "New blood to barter tonight." She smiles as if showing us a new stock of merchandise before inclining her head, dragging her eyes down Lyle's body and leaving.

"She has a Komodo fucking dragon," Lyle's voice is tight in the group chat. "Where the hell did she get him?"

Scythe's icy blues bore into me, and it's almost like he's trying to tell me something. "A few months ago, on a trip to Bali. She shows him off quite often."

"And the platypus?" I ask.

"Oh, she's had him for decades. He must be in his forties by now."

I get to see what Scythe meant about her showing off the Komodo dragon barely fifteen minutes later when a great applause rises from their corner. I turn in time to see the shifted beast, swallowing down a whole billy goat between its big jaws. It's entirely gory, and the snakes, tigers and hyenas clap and laugh as they watch.

Girls dance on a platform nearby and a group of younger males snort lines of coke in plain sight. A group of birds approach us, and by the time I catch their scent—wedge-tailed eagle—they're before us.

Scythe offers their don, a muscular, black-bearded man called Arthos Windmaster, a seat on his other side.

"Halfeather's widow," he says by way of greeting to me.

Savage's hand clenches around my calf.

"It was never my signature on that contract," I say smoothly, sipping from my crystal tumbler. "I was not married to him, in my eyes."

"No, it would have been Mace Naga's signature as per the Old Law," he says boldly. "Was the marriage consummated?"

Lyle and Savage both let out loud growls of dissent, forcing Arthos to incline his head. "I mean no offence."

"Offence is taken." It's Lyle's animus that replies, his voice like ancient rocks grinding together.

Arthos glances at Scythe, who stares at him hard. The eagle clenches his teeth before gesturing with two fingers, indicating to the younger male in the group. The small, russet haired male steps forward. "Master, please." His hands tremble until he clenches them into fists.

Bile surges up my throat, and before I can do or say anything, Scythe makes a casual gesture of his hand, like a dismissive sort of wave of his fingers.

The male gasps. Chokes. The veins in his neck pop out. Blood runs down his nose, out of his ears, before he crumples to the ground and is still.

I can't stop my gasp and Scythe has the audacity—no, the malevolence —to shoot me a disapproving look.

You may not like the men they are tonight.

"Why?" I choke into the group chat as the birds of prey silently pick up the male.

"The price of making Scythe an enemy," Savage replies smugly. " The crime lords are not all equal, regina. If he hadn't offered up one of his beasts now, he would have paid in other worse ways. It was the smartest thing for him to do."

"But he didn't offend Scythe. Just me."

Savage's thumb strokes up and down as he chuckles into my mind. "And you are ours."

My stomach flutters at his possession, but now the conversation continues as if nothing had happened.

Arthos is speaking, but everyone can see the sheen of sweat on his forehead. "The matter of the Halfeather estate?—"

"Is settled," Scythe says. "That land is now mine."

My head snaps towards Scythe. Why had I thought my father owned that land now?

Xander laughs, and it crawls up my spine. "Five crispy chickens," he says. "More like charcoal, now that I think on it."

The eagles bristle but say nothing.

"The Halfeather legacy has ended," Scythe says, "unless his young nephews grow up and decide to try their hand for it."

And that's the end of that conversation.

Just after the don of the eagles came to say hello, a lion and a wolf get into a fight so bad they spend ten minutes mopping the floor afterwards. There's another murder that I don't see from this side of the hall.

Just another night at The Jewel of the Jungle. The devil's own playground.

"The Clawsons won't come over, will they?" I say tentatively to Scythe, who's glancing at his phone. My heart leaps. It could be Marduk, checking in. Sabrina's rescue is so close now.

"No," Scythe replies, pocketing his phone and rising smoothly to his feet, "and it's about time we pay them our regards."